Making for one of the few novels that HBO actually intends to do something with besides leaving it on its coffee table, where other cable channels can see it and be all impressed, the network is moving forward with a pilot order for its Damon Lindelof-led adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers. First reported last June, The Leftovers follows a society in the wake of the Rapture, as people attempt to put together their lives after learning God has left them behind to cool like so much uneaten potato salad.

As we noted at the time, the premise has some parallels to Lindelof’s work on Lost—a disparate group of survivors contending with a grand metaphysical mystery; some decidedly unsubtle Jesus stuff—about which Lindelof, in his own martyrly way, acknowledged that there will be certain viewers who will say, “I’m just not going to put myself through that again.” But of course, they’ll probably have to make a few changes to stretch The Leftovers out into a long-running HBO series that will make it a little different. For example, maybe they could focus it on a group of hip twentysomethings in New York who are just trying to juggle their relationships, their careers, and the threat of eternal Purgatory.